as car enthusiasts, we can all appreciate this, right?
![]()
522 miles. not quite broken in, but close enough.
i pull up to a familiar intersection in the right lane, only to find they've put construction barrels up and my lane ends about 1/4 mile down the road, forcing a left lane merge. realizing i'd have to pull ahead of the car to my left, i look over and see a VW Golf GTI VR6 with Neuspeed stickers all over it, and, judging by the sound, and obviously modified exhaust. knowing from my porsche world that Neuspeed is a very respectable aftermarket mod company, i decide to see what my cl-s can do against this. i was prepared to get spanked.
he revs, lurches, and rolls backwards: 5-speed. i consider turning vsa off and going into ss, but nah, i figure, i wanna see what this thing can do with no tweaks at all. just mash and steer.
the light goes green. for some reason, i became stupid and did not throttle the gas right off the line -- i sorta waited to see what he would do. oddly, i start sooner (not faster) than he does, but he jumps it harder, and nearly instantly has maybe 1/2 car on me. fugg it. i stand on the gas, my cl-s downshifts into first for moment (it must have gone to 2nd in my lazy start), hits second, hits third. at the end of second i have him by a good two cars, and in the middle of third i merge over and realize that i'm doing 85 on a 45 road -- it took no time to get there. d'oh. i slow down and stop at the next light.
the GTI pulls up next to me, and the guy driving signals with a finger to pull into the corner gas station. he seems friendly enough, and besides, this is near detroit, and NOTHING bad ever happens in detroit. um, right?
turns out he has an aftermarket exhaust (from Neuspeed i'd gather) and some variety of intake on his car. the race was fairly close -- the most i had him by was maybe 3 - 3.5 car lengths -- and he said he doesn't typically lose to "luxo-cruisers" (his words, not mine). the funniest thing he asked was, "what the hell is that thing?", so i told him. we laughed a bit, and we both left. pretty cool guy. he was amazed that my car was not modded, and was an automatic to boot.
anyhow, that's my first real, somewhat sloppy first race in my cl-s. i thought y'all would care, so there u go.
![]()
522 miles. not quite broken in, but close enough.
i pull up to a familiar intersection in the right lane, only to find they've put construction barrels up and my lane ends about 1/4 mile down the road, forcing a left lane merge. realizing i'd have to pull ahead of the car to my left, i look over and see a VW Golf GTI VR6 with Neuspeed stickers all over it, and, judging by the sound, and obviously modified exhaust. knowing from my porsche world that Neuspeed is a very respectable aftermarket mod company, i decide to see what my cl-s can do against this. i was prepared to get spanked.
he revs, lurches, and rolls backwards: 5-speed. i consider turning vsa off and going into ss, but nah, i figure, i wanna see what this thing can do with no tweaks at all. just mash and steer.
the light goes green. for some reason, i became stupid and did not throttle the gas right off the line -- i sorta waited to see what he would do. oddly, i start sooner (not faster) than he does, but he jumps it harder, and nearly instantly has maybe 1/2 car on me. fugg it. i stand on the gas, my cl-s downshifts into first for moment (it must have gone to 2nd in my lazy start), hits second, hits third. at the end of second i have him by a good two cars, and in the middle of third i merge over and realize that i'm doing 85 on a 45 road -- it took no time to get there. d'oh. i slow down and stop at the next light.
the GTI pulls up next to me, and the guy driving signals with a finger to pull into the corner gas station. he seems friendly enough, and besides, this is near detroit, and NOTHING bad ever happens in detroit. um, right?
turns out he has an aftermarket exhaust (from Neuspeed i'd gather) and some variety of intake on his car. the race was fairly close -- the most i had him by was maybe 3 - 3.5 car lengths -- and he said he doesn't typically lose to "luxo-cruisers" (his words, not mine). the funniest thing he asked was, "what the hell is that thing?", so i told him. we laughed a bit, and we both left. pretty cool guy. he was amazed that my car was not modded, and was an automatic to boot.
anyhow, that's my first real, somewhat sloppy first race in my cl-s. i thought y'all would care, so there u go.
